I believe that every person has a great deal of potential and has the ability to excel academically. Each person's success will look differently and take a different catalyst to spark a desire to learn -- there is no universal idea that will make a student strive for an education. I have seen young men and women around eighteen years old who have never believed themselves capable of anything requiring intelligence light up and continue with a pursuit of education after a simple task has been completed or a new ability is discovered. It is my sincere belief that as an educator, it is one of my primary duties to prepare all of my students for a life that allows them to discover that spark and pursue a dream. No matter what path a student decides to explore in life, the ability to read, comprehend what has been read, and communicate verbally and in a written form will be vital to success.
My name is Marcus Morton, and I have a somewhat unique education experience. I had a normal primary and secondary education and graduated from Goose Creek High School located in Goose Creek, SC in 1998. I began my freshman year as a knob at The Citadel the following Fall and left early in my college career to begin a family. I stopped my pursuit for a college degree in favor of pursuing a trade career. I first attempted an electrical apprenticeship but decided that wasn't for me. I then tried my hand at pest control and heating and air conditioning installation. Again, I had not found my calling. I went on to provide and service cable and telephone service for business and home use. Eventually, I found my way into the automotive career field. I started as a tire technician, began doing oil changes, and worked my way up to a mechanic. I was still not satisfied with my place in life and so at the age of 24, I enlisted in the United States Army. I served for almost six years as a mechanic and was medically retired at the rank of Sergeant. I became depressed at the loss of my career and revived my pursuit of a college education. I returned to The Citadel and earned a bachelor degree in English in 2014. I worked as a logistics manager for a little over a year before I decided to attend graduate school and become a secondary English teacher.
ABOUT ME
COURSE GOALS
It is my goal to become proficient and comfortable in the use of technology as a teaching tool. There are so many ways to incorporate different technological devices into a program, and each one has the potential to enhance or take away from any given lesson. I hope to learn both the positives and the negatives for as many programs and devices as possible so I might minimize the problems and maximize the learning possibilities for my future students.
PREZI
I developed this Prezi as an introduction to Mark Twain. There has been a great deal of controversy surrounding many of Twain's works concerning his views on race, and it is often alleged that Twain was racist. This Prezi would be intended to be presented along with a verbal lesson. The lesson would start with a brief summary of the accusations against Twain and his works. Then I would discuss satire and its use. I would mention Swift and his "proposal to eat children" as an example. Then I would start the Prezi with a television clip from the 90's in which African American males use satire to make a point and mention one of Twain's works. The link to the Prezi is below.
DIGITAL STORY
It is important that the correct words in a professional setting. With that in mind, I have created a short video clip that gives a brief explanation of when "good" should be used and when "well" should be used. Most people tune out any time grammar is brought up as a subject. I decided to keep the video very short for that reason. I used a combination of simple information charts and memes to accomplish the mission of the video. The link to the video is below. The idea would be for students to be divided into small groups and present grammar lessons on other homophones such as your and you're; their, there, and they're; and its and it's. They will create short videos to present the lessons and then present in a question-and-answer class discussion format to complete the lessons. Good vs. Well
EDITING ASSIGNMENT
Students will write an instructional paper. The assignment will require students to write out the instructions on how to do something. An example would be a step by step guide on how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. The chosen task must require a minimum of 6 steps.
The purpose behind the assignment is that students will be required to think critically in order to explain how to accomplish a task. Encouraging students to explain a task of their own choosing, allows for more focus to be placed on critical thinking and word choice. Sentences should be concise and clear. This type of writing requires students to practice concise informational writing without the pressures of page or word counts.
The class will pair off and exchange papers. Student A will read student B's paper out loud, and both students will make notations of areas that need revisions. This exercise will serve to prove the effectiveness of reading a paper aloud to determine problems within a paper such as missing or wrong words. Other problems can also be exposed by having someone other than the author read the paper while the author listens.
After the paper is read aloud and both parties have made notations of areas that may benefit from revision, the reader will ask the writer questions about the instructions provided. These questions should also serve as a guide for the author to learn where more information might be needed within the instructions.
After the reader and author have completed this process, they will switch roles and complete the steps again.
Both parties will be required to turn in revision notes and fill out a questionnaire on how they feel their partner helped or hurt the instructional paper writing process.
ORAL HISTORY
My students will use the Medal of Honor Foundation's Character Development Program to learn about oral history and interviewing techniques. We will discuss how to develop appropriate questions for interviewing and how to conduct research to prepare for an interview.
The Medal of Honor Foundation (MOHF) has hard copy and digital material designed to teach children positive character traits. The program uses the citation recommendations, award descriptions, biographies, and video interviews as tools to teach. Every person depicted is a recipient of the Congressional Medal of Honor. Individuals can be searched for by campaign or demographics.
After teaching a section on oral history, students will select a MOH recipient by name, demographic, and campaign from a pre-approved list. The students will then conduct background research and write questions they feel would be useful and appropriate for conducting an interview. After completing the research and writing, the students will watch the videos and read the available materials about their recipient. They will then write a reflection paper discussing which of their questions would have produced the answers needed to develop the content provided through the MOHF and which questions would not have worked. They will also have a chance to state why questions they wrote but did not appear to have been asked previously should have been used and what information they feel the answers would have provided.
WIKI
My wiki is designed to be used by a creative writing class. Each student will be assigned an ID number and 3 due dates. Students' writing pieces must be turned in no later than the start of class on the due date so that the class can read and comment on the piece before the following class. The students' writing will be discussed in class the following day. This process will be repeated until all students have written 3 pieces. Each student's privacy will be ensured so long as students do not reveal their id numbers to others.
The link to my class page is below. Mr. Morton's wiki
BLOG
Every student will create a blog that discusses characters from assigned readings. Each student will pick a character from a provided list and will write a blog posting for every assigned weekly reading. The post will discuss previous thoughts about the character or initial thoughts if the character is introduced within the assigned reading. The student will then discuss if his or her view of the character has or has not changed within the assigned reading. Every post must contain cited examples to support the view expressed by the student. At the end of the assigned readings, students will then have the ability to look at all blog posts so that the postings can be utilized for test and or paper preparations. TECHNOLOGY PIECE Computer programs and apps are not new to education, but IBM has developed a new app that may be revolutionary for educators. The app is
IBM Watson Element for Educators. This application is designed to afford educators the unique opportunity to combine hard data such as test scores with personalized information in order to have a better overall picture of the individual student. A teacher has the ability to add a student's interests and extra curricular activities as well as recording important dates such as winning an award or upcoming ball game or other significant event. The app tracks a student's educational progress and can search for helpful programs that incorporate special interests. For example, if Billy likes baseball and is struggling with decimals in math class, IBM Watson Element for Educators will search programs to find a resource that uses determining batting averages as a platform to engage Billy in learning more about decimals and encouraging him to invest his time in the tools available. Although the app may require a bit more of the teacher's time at the beginning of the year as they set up each student's profile, it can be a game changer for time management and make it easier and faster for teachers to locate individual learning tools for every student. Another cool feature this app provides is the ability to track the attendance of every student. This allows teachers to easily see if a student missed significant amounts of time during certain lessons and also enables anyone viewing the app to see any correlations between attendance and academic achievement. Although this can theoretically be done now with resources offered by school districts, it can be tedious to change between tabs to identify trends. This program displays all of this information in one convenient place. IBM was also thinking about the time requirements to set up profiles for each student every year and how much redundant work would be required to learn that Suzy likes basketball and Johnny enjoys fishing. In order to cut down on the time it takes for a teacher to learn every child's learning styles, interests, and past learning experiences, IBM Watson Element for Educators allows new teachers to view and utilize the previous years student profile so it can be expanded upon and yearly transitions for students and teachers can become easier and faster. This type of application is a game changer if it functions as advertised. A school district in Texas recently tested this application and the reviews were positive. IBM developed this program after successfully launching the Watson Discovery Advisor in 2014 which was used to aid researchers. Hopefully this new technology aids in developing each individual student's needs. For more information on this application a video can be viewed below.
If interested, the original Watson platform can be further investigated by viewing the following video.
Although dictation software is not new to the market, the technology is advancing rapidly. These advancements continue to improve the accuracy in which dictation is taken. One company -- Nuance -- has developed several versions of software all under the name of Dragon. This software has been developed for both PC and Mac operating systems and versions have been created for home use, office use, and specialty versions exist for medical, legal, law enforcement, and education. There is a strong possibility that our students will encounter future versions of this software in their future careers.
My plan is to utilize this software as I teach a lesson on folk tales and as a bridge to oral history. Folk tales are traditionally handed down orally and as such students will be given an assignment to create a folk tale and using dictation software, create a word document. They will then edit and revise the tale. Both the original dictation and the final edited copy will be turned in.
Students will benefit from this assignment in multiple ways. The first is that they will have the ability to explore new software that many may not have had a chance to use first-hand. Students also gain the ability to write without the immediate pressure of editing while typing. Taking away this pressure will prove to students that creating written and work is not directly tied to typing or hand-writing skills. Students also gain the ability to see the difference in how we speak and formal writing. Public speaking skills are learned and honed by using this software as well because uhms and ahs are dictated directly into the file along with the words needed. The students will also have the opportunity to become proficient in using dictation software with the hope that they can use it later in the semester to assist in note taking while conducting interviews.
PREZI REVISION I decided to revise my Prezi. I decided that Prezis would be a great way for students to share authors rather than do book reports. The idea behind the assignment is that students will pick an author, poet, or songwriter - not performer - whom they feel is important and share it with the class. It is important that the student include some background on the person such as birth and death year, experiences that are relevant to shaping the writer's work, and why the writer is relevant. The student should also strive to encourage other students to read something by the writer. I hope that by assigning this, students will be encouraged to think about why their favorite writer is important to them and why others should read them as well. By opening this assignment to songwriters as well, I hope to interest all students in the assignment while giving prime examples of why writing is important and exposing the truth that reading and writing is more than writing a research paper or reading other academically approved authors. The following is an example of what is expected of the students.
REFLECTION Although I have enjoyed this class, I will not be able to use this information in a classroom setting as I have decided to purse other career paths. despite my choice to change my career goals, I did find the course helpful. I can see a lot of ways in which the information covered this semester can be relevant in other careers. As always, Dr. Maxwell has continued to be helpful in honing my writing skills and politely pointing out careless grammatical errors that seem to plague me. I found the Prezi, Wiki, and Blog assignments to be the most beneficial. Prezis can be used for a variety of presentations and this week forced me to explore the available options of the program farther than I have before. I had never done anything with a wiki prior to this course and I am eager to explore how I might be able to utilize them in the future. I knew what a blog was and how they could be used, but now that I have explored them more I am considering starting a blog to aid in the establishment of a possible business venture. I have enjoyed the majority of the class and value the meeting all of my classmates> I wish the best to all of them as they enter the classroom to do one of the most underappreciated professions I can think of. Thank you to everyone for their comments and support throughout the semester.
I developed this Prezi as an introduction to Mark Twain. There has been a great deal of controversy surrounding many of Twain's works concerning his views on race, and it is often alleged that Twain was racist. This Prezi would be intended to be presented along with a verbal lesson. The lesson would start with a brief summary of the accusations against Twain and his works. Then I would discuss satire and its use. I would mention Swift and his "proposal to eat children" as an example. Then I would start the Prezi with a television clip from the 90's in which African American males use satire to make a point and mention one of Twain's works. The link to the Prezi is below.
DIGITAL STORYIt is important that the correct words in a professional setting. With that in mind, I have created a short video clip that gives a brief explanation of when "good" should be used and when "well" should be used. Most people tune out any time grammar is brought up as a subject. I decided to keep the video very short for that reason. I used a combination of simple information charts and memes to accomplish the mission of the video. The link to the video is below. The idea would be for students to be divided into small groups and present grammar lessons on other homophones such as your and you're; their, there, and they're; and its and it's. They will create short videos to present the lessons and then present in a question-and-answer class discussion format to complete the lessons.
Good vs. Well
EDITING ASSIGNMENT
Students will write an instructional paper. The assignment will require students to write out the instructions on how to do something. An example would be a step by step guide on how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. The chosen task must require a minimum of 6 steps.
The purpose behind the assignment is that students will be required to think critically in order to explain how to accomplish a task. Encouraging students to explain a task of their own choosing, allows for more focus to be placed on critical thinking and word choice. Sentences should be concise and clear. This type of writing requires students to practice concise informational writing without the pressures of page or word counts.
The class will pair off and exchange papers. Student A will read student B's paper out loud, and both students will make notations of areas that need revisions. This exercise will serve to prove the effectiveness of reading a paper aloud to determine problems within a paper such as missing or wrong words. Other problems can also be exposed by having someone other than the author read the paper while the author listens.
After the paper is read aloud and both parties have made notations of areas that may benefit from revision, the reader will ask the writer questions about the instructions provided. These questions should also serve as a guide for the author to learn where more information might be needed within the instructions.
After the reader and author have completed this process, they will switch roles and complete the steps again.
Both parties will be required to turn in revision notes and fill out a questionnaire on how they feel their partner helped or hurt the instructional paper writing process.
ORAL HISTORY
My students will use the Medal of Honor Foundation's Character Development Program to learn about oral history and interviewing techniques. We will discuss how to develop appropriate questions for interviewing and how to conduct research to prepare for an interview.
The Medal of Honor Foundation (MOHF) has hard copy and digital material designed to teach children positive character traits. The program uses the citation recommendations, award descriptions, biographies, and video interviews as tools to teach. Every person depicted is a recipient of the Congressional Medal of Honor. Individuals can be searched for by campaign or demographics.
After teaching a section on oral history, students will select a MOH recipient by name, demographic, and campaign from a pre-approved list. The students will then conduct background research and write questions they feel would be useful and appropriate for conducting an interview. After completing the research and writing, the students will watch the videos and read the available materials about their recipient. They will then write a reflection paper discussing which of their questions would have produced the answers needed to develop the content provided through the MOHF and which questions would not have worked. They will also have a chance to state why questions they wrote but did not appear to have been asked previously should have been used and what information they feel the answers would have provided.
WIKI
My wiki is designed to be used by a creative writing class. Each student will be assigned an ID number and 3 due dates. Students' writing pieces must be turned in no later than the start of class on the due date so that the class can read and comment on the piece before the following class. The students' writing will be discussed in class the following day. This process will be repeated until all students have written 3 pieces. Each student's privacy will be ensured so long as students do not reveal their id numbers to others.
The link to my class page is below.
Mr. Morton's wiki
BLOG
Every student will create a blog that discusses characters from assigned readings. Each student will pick a character from a provided list and will write a blog posting for every assigned weekly reading. The post will discuss previous thoughts about the character or initial thoughts if the character is introduced within the assigned reading. The student will then discuss if his or her view of the character has or has not changed within the assigned reading. Every post must contain cited examples to support the view expressed by the student. At the end of the assigned readings, students will then have the ability to look at all blog posts so that the postings can be utilized for test and or paper preparations.
TECHNOLOGY PIECE
Computer programs and apps are not new to education, but IBM has developed a new app that may be revolutionary for educators. The app is
IBM Watson Element for Educators. This application is designed to afford educators the unique opportunity to combine hard data such as test scores with personalized information in order to have a better overall picture of the individual student. A teacher has the ability to add a student's interests and extra curricular activities as well as recording important dates such as winning an award or upcoming ball game or other significant event. The app tracks a student's educational progress and can search for helpful programs that incorporate special interests. For example, if Billy likes baseball and is struggling with decimals in math class, IBM Watson Element for Educators will search programs to find a resource that uses determining batting averages as a platform to engage Billy in learning more about decimals and encouraging him to invest his time in the tools available. Although the app may require a bit more of the teacher's time at the beginning of the year as they set up each student's profile, it can be a game changer for time management and make it easier and faster for teachers to locate individual learning tools for every student.
Another cool feature this app provides is the ability to track the attendance of every student. This allows teachers to easily see if a student missed significant amounts of time during certain lessons and also enables anyone viewing the app to see any correlations between attendance and academic achievement. Although this can theoretically be done now with resources offered by school districts, it can be tedious to change between tabs to identify trends. This program displays all of this information in one convenient place.
IBM was also thinking about the time requirements to set up profiles for each student every year and how much redundant work would be required to learn that Suzy likes basketball and Johnny enjoys fishing. In order to cut down on the time it takes for a teacher to learn every child's learning styles, interests, and past learning experiences, IBM Watson Element for Educators allows new teachers to view and utilize the previous years student profile so it can be expanded upon and yearly transitions for students and teachers can become easier and faster.
This type of application is a game changer if it functions as advertised. A school district in Texas recently tested this application and the reviews were positive. IBM developed this program after successfully launching the Watson Discovery Advisor in 2014 which was used to aid researchers. Hopefully this new technology aids in developing each individual student's needs. For more information on this application a video can be viewed below.
If interested, the original Watson platform can be further investigated by viewing the following video.
Read the press release here:
IBM Watson Element for Educators
EMERGING TECHNOLOGY
Although dictation software is not new to the market, the technology is advancing rapidly. These advancements continue to improve the accuracy in which dictation is taken. One company -- Nuance -- has developed several versions of software all under the name of Dragon. This software has been developed for both PC and Mac operating systems and versions have been created for home use, office use, and specialty versions exist for medical, legal, law enforcement, and education. There is a strong possibility that our students will encounter future versions of this software in their future careers.
My plan is to utilize this software as I teach a lesson on folk tales and as a bridge to oral history. Folk tales are traditionally handed down orally and as such students will be given an assignment to create a folk tale and using dictation software, create a word document. They will then edit and revise the tale. Both the original dictation and the final edited copy will be turned in.
Students will benefit from this assignment in multiple ways. The first is that they will have the ability to explore new software that many may not have had a chance to use first-hand. Students also gain the ability to write without the immediate pressure of editing while typing. Taking away this pressure will prove to students that creating written and work is not directly tied to typing or hand-writing skills. Students also gain the ability to see the difference in how we speak and formal writing. Public speaking skills are learned and honed by using this software as well because uhms and ahs are dictated directly into the file along with the words needed. The students will also have the opportunity to become proficient in using dictation software with the hope that they can use it later in the semester to assist in note taking while conducting interviews.
PREZI REVISION
I decided to revise my Prezi.
I decided that Prezis would be a great way for students to share authors rather than do book reports. The idea behind the assignment is that students will pick an author, poet, or songwriter - not performer - whom they feel is important and share it with the class. It is important that the student include some background on the person such as birth and death year, experiences that are relevant to shaping the writer's work, and why the writer is relevant. The student should also strive to encourage other students to read something by the writer.
I hope that by assigning this, students will be encouraged to think about why their favorite writer is important to them and why others should read them as well. By opening this assignment to songwriters as well, I hope to interest all students in the assignment while giving prime examples of why writing is important and exposing the truth that reading and writing is more than writing a research paper or reading other academically approved authors.
The following is an example of what is expected of the students.
REFLECTION
Although I have enjoyed this class, I will not be able to use this information in a classroom setting as I have decided to purse other career paths. despite my choice to change my career goals, I did find the course helpful. I can see a lot of ways in which the information covered this semester can be relevant in other careers. As always, Dr. Maxwell has continued to be helpful in honing my writing skills and politely pointing out careless grammatical errors that seem to plague me. I found the Prezi, Wiki, and Blog assignments to be the most beneficial. Prezis can be used for a variety of presentations and this week forced me to explore the available options of the program farther than I have before. I had never done anything with a wiki prior to this course and I am eager to explore how I might be able to utilize them in the future. I knew what a blog was and how they could be used, but now that I have explored them more I am considering starting a blog to aid in the establishment of a possible business venture. I have enjoyed the majority of the class and value the meeting all of my classmates> I wish the best to all of them as they enter the classroom to do one of the most underappreciated professions I can think of. Thank you to everyone for their comments and support throughout the semester.